Fake dating is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling, done to death yet still very compelling, very endearing. They’re usually overtly cheerful and quirky in their execution, but when you hand over the same subject to Ritesh Batra, he makes something else of it altogether.

For those familiar with the director’s debut feature film, The Lunchbox, Photograph will seem like a natural progression. A quiet, thoughtful story about two people coming together and wanting to stay together despite everything, and everyone around them, telling them that this is not possible.

Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is a photographer at Gateway of India, urging tourists and bored Mumbaikars to get a photo clicked that will remind them of this day long after it has passed. When he says this to a dazed, almost catatonic Miloni (Sanya Malhotra), something shifts in her and she agrees. Then she walks away without paying him. Later, he presents this photo to his grandmother (Farrukh Jaffar), who is emotionally blackmailing him to get married, saying that ‘Noori’ is his girlfriend. Noori because he doesn’t know her real name, but, more importantly, the song is playing in the background when he is writing the letter. Many such Hindi classics are intertwined throughout the film, and you immediately understand why Nawaz’s character is called Rafi.

Anyway, Dadi is so pleased that she pays Rafi a visit, and he somehow finds and convinces Miloni to go along with his charade. This part is very hard to believe but that’s beside the point. As they meet and hang out with Dadi, something unspoken begins to form between Rafi and Miloni, something akin to love, but closer to a soul connection, some kind of raabta. But that is also where the plot ends.

Even though the film is less than two hours long, the flimsy plot and stillness of the storytelling start to test your patience after a while. Besides, we’re given so little to go on about Miloni that none of her actions make any sense. Why is she playing along to Rafi’s lies? Why is she so submissive towards her parents? Why is she studying to become a CA if she actually wants to go live in a village and do farming instead? What is her relationship with her Gujarati family? Why is their maid, Rampyaari (Geetanjali Kulkarni), her only ally in the house? Sanya tries hard to convey the answers to all these questions through her expressions and body language, but there is only so much you can show and not tell. She has very little dialogue in the film but she does some extraordinary work in it despite, or maybe because of, that.

Rafi’s intentions are clearer since we have an idea of his childhood, which also explains his devotion to his dadi. And this role is right up Nawaz’s alley so he adds a certain charm to the film that few other actors would have been able to do. There are many other character actors that we meet along the way, all in just a couple of scenes yet all very memorable, from an annoying chatty taxi driver to a ceiling fan come to life.

As is the trend nowadays, Mumbai is a character on its own here. The restless, apathetic metropolitan stands in sharp contrast to the reflective, sensitive characters that inhabit it. Cinematographers Tim Gillis and Ben Kutchins do full justice to the many shades of the city, capturing it in all its glory.

Photograph is an absorbing film, but you need to be in a certain frame of mind to watch it. Perhaps when you need some quiet amidst the chaos of human existence, or alternatively, when you need something tender to break the silence around you.